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Self Concept

Study of the self concept has been divided into: •  Cognitive side.

–  The child’s internal representation of their self concept and the self concepts of others, their inner thoughts and feelings, and their relationship to their actions.

•  Affective side. –  The child’s evaluation of the traits in their self concepts, leads

to positive and negative feelings. What psychologists have termed Self esteem.

On the cognitive side, the child’s understanding of the self begins with concrete manifestations of how people differ, and moves in the direction to more abstract traits with age.

Age Changes in Describing the Self •  Preschool. Categorical self. Preschoolers use characteristics that reflect

concrete observable characteristics (blonde hair, sex) physical activities or abilities (I play baseball), and but some limited awareness of the psychological traits (“I’m happy when I play”) that describe themselves in all or none fashion.

•  6-8 years. Use of behavioral comparisons. “Tom is smarter than John.” Leads to understanding of regularities in behavior, and foundation for understanding enduring psychological traits.

•  8-11 years. Psychological self. Use personality traits to describe people and to act on them (e.g. desire to play with someone who is “nice.”) Begins to describe the self, admitting to both positive and negative traits, but does not show the integration and coordination of traits present in adolescence. Have difficulty with contradictory or mixed emotions. Can a person be smart and dumb at the same time?

•  Adolescence. Move toward integrated view of personality, traits organized them into a system. Greater use of qualifiers (“I’m not thoroughly honest”) a recognition of the inconsistency in a person’s behavior. Greater emphasis on positive virtues (friendly, considerate, kind and cooperative) reflecting their greater for how they look to others. Finally, personal and moral values often come up as themes.

Changes in describing personality The Evaluative side: Self-Esteem The child’s growing knowledge of the self, and

the ability to make a comparison with the selfs of others, leads to emotional consequences in how they feel about themselves. •  Children who feel pleased with their traits, or who

focus on their strengths, experience Positive (high) self-esteem

•  Children who feel dissatisfied with the traits they possess and dwell on inadequacies suffer negative (low) self-esteem

Self-esteem changes depending on the situation the child is in.

Hierarchical Structure of Self-Esteem in Middle Childhood

Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Allyn & Bacon.

© Laura Dwight Photography; © George Disario/CORBIS; © Mitch Wojnarowicz/The Image Works; Radius Images/Photolibrary

Self Esteem

Two sources of evaluation •  Children value traits that have lead to the actual

experience of efficacy and success, or failure. •  Children also learn to value traits that appear to be

valued by others.

Interestingly the child’s self evaluation need not be an accurate, perception of reality to have affective results. For example: •  From 4-7, Children often evaluate themselves

unrealistically high, before dropping drastically in elementary school.

•  By age 8, Children’s valuations of themselves are less positive but more accurate.

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Male and Female Self Esteem and Age Self Esteem

Physical self esteem. •  Starting in middle childhood both boys and girls who

are dissatisfied and concerned with their physical appearance, but females are more concerned and show more negative self esteem in this area which continues beyond adolescence.

•  Boys self esteem are in areas that can be changed more easily by their efforts.

Positive Self Esteem

How important is it that children feel good about themselves?

If a child feels good about him/herself will they be more motivated to accomplish more?

Can parent’s and adults who work with children directly changed the child’s self esteem by communicating positive messages to them about how good they are?

Research on Raising Self Esteem

No evidence that direct attempts to boost self-esteem works.

Such a program can backfire. If a school program intervenes directly to boost self-esteem regardless of academic performance, then students can enjoy the rewards of self-esteem without making the effort and motivation will decline.

Once major incentive to work hard is eliminated, students might reduce their effort, leading to poorer academic performance. Baumeister, Campbell, Kruegger, and Vohs, 2003

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Self Esteem

Self-esteem is correlated with certain conditions, but it may not cause them. •  High self-esteem is correlated with less depression and

fewer conduct disorders, and that Low self-esteem is correlated with mental and physical health problems.

Do people who have low self esteem fail to succeed?

People who have high self esteem avoid situations in which they don’t do well. They protect themselves but at the same time limit stretching who they are. Low self esteem people try to fix themselves.

Low Self Esteem Children

Parenting that helps children build intellectual and social competencies benefits their self esteem. Smith and Smoll (1990) studied 542 Little League

players (all boys) with a mean age of 11.12 years and the 51 coaches who worked with these children. •  Low-self-esteem children, but not moderate or high,

responded more positively to supportive coaches, they need the support and seek it out.

•  However, they were also attracted to coaches who who were highly instructive about how to play. These kids were looking for someone to help them build skills that could enhance their esteem to more positive levels.

Praising Children Doug does not want his daughter Jane to feel bad when she

does something poorly so he makes a point of not correcting her when she makes a mistake. He doesn’t want to “break” her spirit.

The mind is like spun glass myth Andrew’s son Toby is terribly uncoordinated playing

baseball. To give him encouragement, Andrew tells him that he plays much better than most kids and that he doesn’t realize how good he is.

Failure to give child useful honest feedback Alex wants his daughter Samantha to take great pride in her

work so he takes care to give a lot of praise when she does things “perfectly”

Praise needs to be focused on reasonable outcomes

Praising Children

Amy believes she should complement her child so that he will develop positive self esteem. When he draws a picture she says “That’s the most beautiful picture I’ve ever seen.” When he brings home a good report card she tells him “You must be the smartest kid in class.

Complimenting a child too highly Ashley wants her child to feel special so she makes a point of

getting her opinion on most matters. How would she like her room decorated? What are her favorite foods? What TV programs does she want to watch? And so on.

Implying that the world revolves around Ashley, encourages self absorption

Self Esteem

Do parents try too hard to prevent their children from ever feeling bad. •  Easter egg hunt cancelled •  Kindergarten for the gifted and talented. Parents now

enrolling their children in special programs that raise their scores and the numbers eligible have doubled.

Can children learn from experiencing failure? •  The lesson to keep going in the face of disappointment

can be learned from failure. However, children can exaggerate the significance of failure and disappointment and give up trying. Parents play important roles in helping child to process what it means and what one should do about it.

Motivating Children

Scenario: If children are given opportunities to experience

success and then praised for it by telling them they are intelligent, they will feel good about themselves and feel confident, love learning, and be motivated for future achievement. •  Example: George’s George jr. was working on a

puzzle task and did quite well. George said “Wow, you got them all correct. That’s really good. You must be smart at this.”

Is this a good idea?

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Carol Dweck’s Work on Praise

First Study: Fifth grade students given a learning task and either praised: •  For being intelligent: “Wow, you got them all correct.

That’s really good. You must be smart at this.” •  For their efforts: “You must have worked really hard.”

Results: •  Both groups enjoyed task equally, eager to take problems

home to practice on and equally confident of future performance.

•  However, when given a choice task: –  A challenging task from which they could learn a lot but might

not succeed at (90% praised for efforts chose this task) –  An easier task on which they would do well and keep looking

smart (majority praised for intelligence chose this task).

Carol Dweck’s Work on Praise

Study 2: Groups then given more difficult problems they wouldn’t do well on •  Group praised for intelligence did not like task, did not want to

take problems home to practice, and they questioned their intelligence.

•  Group praised for effort liked the difficult task as much as the earlier easier task, and were eager to take tasks home and practice.

Study 3: Both groups given a third set of problems of equal difficulty to the first set? •  Group praised for intelligence now performed much worse, but

effort group did significantly better than they did on the original set.

•  When given a chance to report their performance 40% of intelligence group lied about their score but very few of the effort group did so.

Carol Dweck (continued) Conclusions:

•  Children who are praised for their intelligence, influences them to believe that ability is a fixed trait, and thus view failure as a personal statement that they are incompetent.

•  Students who are praised for their efforts in the face of disappointment, encourages them to view ability as something that can be learned, and thus see failure as a signal to try harder.

Sweet Revenge—Do you have an enemy? Praise them for their intelligence.

Parenting and Achievement Motivation

IQ predicts school grades at about .5 to .6. What explains much of the rest?

Motivation. David McClelland devised a test based on a

subset of the TAT to measure of Achievement motivation •  People with high Achievement needs, desire to master difficult

challenges, meet high standards, and outperform others. They get better grades, aspired to higher status occupations, show persistence and hard work.

Academic Self Concept and Achievement

What determines high achievement motivation? •  High need achievement low fear of failure children.

–  Parents are warm, affectionate and supportive, who encourage their children to attempt tasks slightly beyond their reach, praise their success when it occurs, discourage complaining, encourage independent thinking, and prompt their children to try new solutions. Set high standards but allow their children a voice in what they do. They do not blame their child for failure.

•  High Fear of failure, highly directive and make decisions for their children, react with annoyance and anger when their children do not immediately behave appropriately and successfully. Low self esteem can result from Parents who ignore the child’s success, focus on failure, and set impossible standards.

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Feelings of Control and Achievement Motivation

Children who feel a sense of personal control do better (Internalizers vs. Externalizers). Believe their efforts will make a difference. 1. If a teacher passes you to the next grade, it would probably be ____ a. because she likes you ____ b. because of the work you did* 2. When you do well on a test at school, it is more likely to be ____ a. because you studied for it* ____ b. because the test was especially easy 3. When you read a story and can’t remember much of it, it is usually ____ a. because the story wasn’t well written ____ b. because you weren’t interested in the story*

•  Denotes the “internal” response for each sample item. Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire (Crandall)

Attributions for our success and failure

An Attribution is what we attribute as the cause of our behavior.

It can differ on two dimensions •  Internal/External

–  Internal attribution, the cause is located inside the person –  External attribution, the cause is located outside the person’s

control in the environment

•  Stable/Unstable –  Stable, the cause does not change across time or situations –  Unstable, the cause changes across time and situations with no

consistency

Internal and External Attributions of Success and Failure

Stable Cause Unstable Cause

Internal Cause

Ability “I am good in that subject” “I am poor in that subject”

Effort “I studied really hard” “I didn’t study”

External Cause

Task Difficulty “The test was easy” “The test was hard”

Luck “I was lucky” “I was unlucky”

Expectancy of success You will expect to do well because you have the ability and these tests are easy. You will expect to do poorly.

Expectancy of success is less strong. Expectancy for failure weak.

Mastery and Learned Helplessness

Mastery Pattern Helplessness Pattern

Success “I did well because I am smart (ability) and the test was easy (task difficulty)”

“I did well because I worked hard (effort) and I was lucky (luck)”

Failure “I failed because I didn’t try (effort), and luck (luck) was against me”

“I failed because I am not very smart (ability) and the test was hard (task difficulty)”

Encourages: Incremental view of ability. Ability can be increased through hard work and failures can be overcome by effort. “Move on” after failure.

Encourages: Entity view of ability. Ability is fixed and cannot be changed by trying hard. Tend to ruminate about their failures and believe there is little they can do to control situation.

Stable Reasons Unstable Reasons

Two Views of Ability Developmental Changes in Achievement Motivation

Up to age 7 years •  Children adopt an incremental view of ability. Can accomplish

anything if they try. Adults are more likely to reward young children for their efforts than quality of work.

8-12 years and Especially High School •  Older children move toward entity view of intelligence, when

evaluated by the quality of work rather than effort, e.g., grading, separation into ability groups, academic competitions.

Shift: LearningPerformance •  Learning Goals - How can I do this and how can I improve my

performance (incremental view-effort will increase ability). •  Performance Goals – How can I be successful and perform better

than others (entity view-ability is fixed). –  Change from Learning goals ◊Performance goals. Correlated

with decreased motivation to learn

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Achievement Motivation

Dweck’s study of children going into junior high •  Child who believed intelligence fixed saw poor

performance as indication they were dumb, were more likely to consider cheating, and that they were not going to expend much effort on school. Did more poorly than in elementary school.

•  Children who believed intelligence from effort felt poor performance called for more studying and that effort was worthwhile and important. Gained in class standing from Elementary school

Good Parenting Advice “You can do it if you try.”

Knowing Others – Ability to Take Another’s Perspective

Selman’s Holly Dilemma

•  Holly is an 8 year-old girl who likes to climb trees. She is the best tree climber in the neighborhood. One day while climbing down from a tall tree she falls off the bottom branch but does not hurt herself. Her father sees her fall. He is upset and asks her to promise not to climb the trees anymore. Holly promises. Later that day, Holly and her friends meet Sean. Sean's kitten is caught up in a tree and cannot get down. Something has to be down right away or the kitten may fall. Holly is the only one who climbs trees well enough to reach the kitten and get it down, but she remembers her promise to her father.

•  Does Holly know how Sean feels about the kitten? •  How will Holly's father feel if he finds out she climbed the tree. •  What does Holly think her father will do if he finds out she

climbed the tree? •  What would you do in this situation?

Selman's Levels of Perspective Taking 0. Egocentric or undifferentiated perspective (3 to 6 years).

Children are unaware of any perspective other than their own. "Holly will save the kitten." "Holly's father will be happy, because he likes kittens."

1. Social-Informational perspective taking (6 to 8 years). Realize that there are other perspectives, but depends on different information. "If he didn't know why she climbed the tree, he would be angry. But if he knew why she did it, he would realize that she had a good reason."

2. Self-reflective role taking (8 to 10 years). Can put themselves in another person’s shoes but can entertain only one perspective at a time. "Holly will climb the tree, she knows that her father will understand why she did it." Will Holly's father want her to climb the tree? "No, he wouldn't like it."

Selman's Levels of Perspective Taking 3. Mutual role taking (10-12 years). Can consider both

perspectives simultaneously "Holly wanted to get the kitten because she likes kittens, but she knew that she wasn't supposed to climb trees. Holly's father knew that Holly had been told not to climb trees, but he couldn't have known about the kitten. He might not punish her if she could make him understand.

4. Social and conventional system role taking (12 - 15). Realizes some perspectives depend on roles in social system "Holly's father will probably punish her because most parents do when their children disobey, however some fathers don't punish their children because they believe it stifles them. It depends on what he believes."

Support for Selman’s Stages Changes in Perspective taking Related to two

factors: •  Increased social experience with adults and peers

correlated with children’s perspective taking –  Collectivist cultures that emphasize importance of cooperation

and group harmony do better on perspective-taking task than individualistic cultures.

•  Perspective taking related to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. Child starts out with egocentric perspective and gradually changes toward taking the perspectives of others.

–  Preoperational children at Selman’s level 0 –  Concrete operational at Selman’s levels 1 and 2 –  Formal Operational at levels 3 and 4 –  Generally advances in Piagetian stages come before gains in

perspective taking.

Formal Operational Adolescents FO can create problems in personal areas.

•  Increased self-consciousness. Greater analytical ability causes them to become overly self-critical about their faults and they hypothesize others are as well.

–  Evident in the Imaginary Audience, and increases in conformity, faddishness and teenage boorishness

•  Personal Fable. Greater analytical and hypothetical abilities can increase self focus and exaggerate self importance, and uniqueness.

•  Indecisiveness. Powers of hypothetical thinking increases alternatives causing them to become indecisive.

•  Adult Cognition. Adolescents become formidable adversary in arguments making parent child conflicts more likely.

•  Naïve idealism. Imagining how things ought to be, that logic is all powerful

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The Imaginary Audience Scale 1. You have looked forward to the most exciting dress-up party of the year.

You arrive after an hour's drive from home. Just as the party is beginning, you notice a grease spot on your trousers or skirt. (There is no way to borrow clothes from anyone.) Would you stay or go home?

____Go home ____Stay, even though I'd feel uncomfortable ____Stay, because the grease spot wouldn't bother me.

2. If you went to a party where you did not know most of the kids, would you wonder what they were thinking about you?

____I wouldn't think about it. ____I would wonder about that a lot. ____I would wonder about that a little.

3. When someone watches me work... ____I get very nervous. ____I don't mind at all. ____I get a little nervous.

4. One young person said, "When I'm with people I get nervous because I worry about how much they like me."

____I feel like this often. ____I never feel like this. ____I feel like this sometimes.

Source: Elkind and Bowen, 1979

Adolescence: “Who Am I?”

Biological influences •  Time of great change in physical and sexual

maturation. Adolescent may experience a need for greater self definition.

Social influences •  Psychosocial moratorium. Society encourages

adolescents to explore adult possibilities while delaying responsibilities that go with them.

•  Adolescence is a time when peer group provides support to move away from the family

Cognitive and intellectual influences •  Formal operations allow the Adolescent to form a

coherent understanding of the self, that we call our identity.

James Marcia’s Identity Statuses

Identity is based on an understanding of occupational, sexual and ideological issues and a commitment to those positions. •  A person who has engaged in an extensive

consideration of where they stand on these issues has experience a crisis

•  A person who has made personal choices of where they stand on these issues has established a commitment

Identity Status based on crisis and commitment No Crisis Crisis

No Commitment Diffusion Moratorium Commitment Foreclosure Achievement

IDENTITY DIFFUSION: No Crisis and No Commitment Individuals experiencing identity diffusion have found neither occupational direction nor an

ideological commitment of any kind, and have made little progress toward these ends. They may have experienced an identity crisis, but if so they were unable to resolve it.

FORECLOSURE: No Crisis but Commitment Individuals in a state of foreclosure have never experienced an identity crisis. Rather, they

have prematurely established an identity on the basis of their parents' choices rather than their own. They have made occupational and ideological commitments, but these commitments reflect more an assessment of what one's parents or authority figures could do rather than an autonomous process of self-assessment. This kind of "pseudo-identity" that generally is too fixed and rigid to serve as a foundation for meeting life's future crises.

MORATORIUM: No Commitment but experiencing Crisis This category is reserved for those who have begun to experiment with occupational and

ideological choices, but who have not yet made definitive commitments to either. These individuals are directly in midst of an identity crisis and are currently examining alternate life choices.

IDENTITY ACHIEVEMENT: Experienced both Crisis and Commitment This signifies a state of identity consolidation in which the individual has made his or her

own conscious, clear-cut decisions concerning occupation and ideology. The individual is convinced that these decision were autonomously and freely made, and that they reflect the individual's true nature and deep inner commitments.

Status and Psychological Characteristics Diffusion

•  Greatest number of psychological and interpersonal problems, most socially withdrawn and low level of intimacy. Greatest alienation with parents, and most feelings of rejection by parents.

Foreclosure •  Closest to parents, but highest need for social approval

and lowest levels of autonomy.

Moratorium •  Highest anxiety level and conflict over issues of authority,

but least rigid and authoritarian. Most open. Identity Achievement

•  Highest levels of self esteem and achievement motivation, moral reasoning, intimacy and reflectiveness.

Questions on Identity

Can college lead to a regression in identity formation?

Is the process of identity formation different for

women than men? Role of parents in identity formation? Does establishing mature intimate romantic

relationships depend on a firm established identity?

Are there further changes in identity once it is

established?

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10

20

30

40

50

60

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12 15 18 21 24

AGE

Identity Status by Age

Achievement

Moratorium

Foreclosure

Diffusion

Identity formation takes longer and at a later age than envisioned by Erikson.

Friends and Identity Formation Friends Provide Support.

•  Close friends are more able to talk about intimate matters and discuss problems and furthers emotional health, and understanding of ourselves and others..

Friends Help Us to Better Understand of ourselves and relationship to others. •  Good Friends help us to develop a more accurate picture of

ourselves that helps us to form a more genuine identity. Provide a means to move away from the egocentrism of the adolescent period and to realize that others have similar problems, needs, strengths and abilities.

Intimacy. •  Close same sex friends provide a prelude to a successful

romantic relationship by preparing us for greater intimacy.